ORIGINAL SECEDERS
439
ORIGINAL SECEDERS
Synod became merged in the National Church of Scot- land. A small minority of the synod declined to ac- cede to the union, preferring to maintain a separate po- sition, and to adhere to the secession Testimony, still retaining the name of the Associate or Original Burgher Synod. On May 18, 1842, most of the Original Burgh- ers who remained after their brethren had joined the Established Church, united with the sj'nod of Original Secedeis, henceforth to form one association for the support of the covenanted Reformation in the king- doms, under the name of Synod of United Original Se- ceders. It had previously been agreed that the Testi- mony adopted by the Synod of Original Seceders in 1827, with the insertion in it of the alterations rendered necessary bj^ the union, was to be held as the Testi- mony of the United Synod, and made a term of relig- ious fellowship in the body. The Synod of Original Burghers was understood to approve of the acknowl- edgment of sins and bond appended to the Testimony, and it was agreed to by the Synod of Original Seceders that the question of the formula regarding the bur- gess-oath should be dropped. On these conditions the union was effected, and the Synod of Original Burghers as then constituted ceased to exist.
At the present time, however, there appear to remain in existence twenty-seven congregations of Original Burghers. They have arranged upon the preliminaries for union with a small body in Ireland holding iden- tical views, and calling themselves the Associate Seces- sion Synod. This body consists of only eleven congre- gations. These Original Burghers have to this day con- tinued consistently to maintain the views upon which the secession was at its origin based. They strongly vindicate the duty and necessity of national religion, and are therefore in favor of national establishments in opposition to the United Presbyterians and other advo- cates of the voluntary system. They are consequently also opposed to schemes for reunion among all Presby- terians, as these would involve the admission of volun- taryism in making the principle of establishment an open question. But their establishment must be one which is based upon the Solemn League and Covenant, which was declared to be binding at the union of the two bodies in 1840, and in IKGO was solemnly renewed by the synod. They are Calvinists of the strictest type, holding the doctrine of a limited atonement — that Christ suffered only for the elect. They are op- posed to the use of hymns and instrumental music in public worship. The Original Secession Magazine, a periodical which appears once in two months, is the au- thorized organ of the views and proceedings of the synod. See Original Secession Magazine ; Oliver and Boyd's Edinb. Almanac; Marsden, Hist, of Churches and Sects, i, 293 sq. ; Gardner, Faiths of the \Vo?-ld, vol. ii, s. v. ; and the references under Scotland and Scotch Presbyter: ANiSM.
Original Seceders (1) (Associate Synod of) is tlie name of a body of Scotch Presbyterians who originated in 1827 by union of what was then the Con- stitutional Associate Presbytery and the Associate (An- tiburgher) Synod, now generally known as Protesters (q. v.), because they took exception in 1820 to the Basis of Union between the two great branches of the seces- sion. See Scotland, Ciiuiich of; Presbyterianism IN Scotland. The articles agreed upon as such a ba- sis were drawn up by Dr. M'Crie, on the one side, and Prof. Paxton on the other. The Testimony, which was enacted as a term of fellowship, ministerial and Chris- tian, in the Associate Synod of Original Seceders, was drawn up in the historical part by Dr. M'Crie, and no- where do we find a more noble, luminous, and satisfac- tory view of the true Seceders, and of their contendings for the Reformation in a state of secession. Dr. M'Crie shows that the four brethren wlio formed the first Seced- ers, though soon after this deed of secession they formed themselves into a presbytery (Dec. G, 1733), still forsome time acted in an extra-judicial capacity, and in this ca-
pacity they issued, in 1734, a "Testimony for the Princi- ples of the Reform Church of Scotland." It was not, in- deed, until two years more had elapsed that they resolved to act in a judicative capacity, and accordingly, in De- cember, 173G, they published their judicial Testimony to the principles and proceedings of the Church of Scotland, and against the course of defection from them. This Testimony, as Dr. M'Crie shows, was not limited to those evils which had formed the immediate ground of secession, but included others also of a prior date, the condemnation of which entered into the Testimony which the faithful party in the Church had all along borne. The whole of that Testimony they carried along with them to a state of secession. In prosecuting their Tes- timony, they deemed it their solemn duty to renew the national covenants, the neglect of which had often been complained of in the Established Church since the Rev- olution. The points of difference between the Original Seceders and the Cameronians or Reform Presbyterians are thus admirably sketched by Dr. M'Crie in the his- torical part of the Testimony of 1827 :